Young family’s grave oversight

Star's burial site unmarked a decade after her death

While institutional Hollywood often forgets its past, fans are often there to keep its former glories alive.

But apparently not for star Loretta Young.

She died Aug. 12, 2000, but still doesn’t have a headstone on her grave.

Fans who wander around Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Calif., searching for the actress’ burial plot are directed to section F, tier 65 grave No. 49, where they find a plot and plaque for Gladys Belzer, Young’s mother.

It is with her that Young’s ashes are buried.

A source at the cemetery says a revised headstone was paid for by the family, but that no family representative ever came in to make decisions about the plaque, and thus it was never installed.

Young became a big star in the ’30s (with the studio keeping her image wholesome, silencing talk about her “love child” with Clark Gable by saying the baby was adopted), won an Oscar for 1947’s “The Farmer’s Daughter” and Emmys for “The Loretta Young Show,” which ran on NBC from 1953-61.

Young’s family could not be reached, and sources at the cemetery suspect the family just forgot, as is often the case with these situations. Holy Cross has sent a letter to the family to notify them.

In the meantime, the thesp’s ashes remain in the unmarked grave for the unsuspecting folk who happen by.